From the scientific viewpoint the old popular belief in the creation of the earth and the race by an act suddenly accomplished is, of course, preposterous. If we could know nothing back of the present moment and were called upon to account for the world as we see it--with its cities, its ships and railways, its cultivated fields and parks--many people who still believe in instantaneous creation of the soul would save themselves much mental exertion by declaring that God had made it all as it stands for the use and entertainment of man. But we know that it is utterly absurd to think of the world leaping into existence instantaneously--nothing existing one day and all trains running on time between ready-made cities the next, carrying ready-made people about. It sounds ridiculous only because we are putting it in material terms, but in very truth it is less ludicrous than thinking of the instantaneous creation of the creators of cities and railways.
The idea that we are a sudden creation is only possible because of the very vague ideas of what human souls are. The chief difficulty with the popular notion that a human soul is as new as the body it inhabits is that it is a vague and indefinite conception of life, and the moment we begin to think seriously about it the weakness of the idea becomes apparent. Such a notion has no relationship to the processes of reasoning. How can one reason with a man who believes it possible for a soul to spring into existence from the void? What is the use in reasoning about the "whys and wherefores" when it settles the whole matter to say: "God did it"?
One thing that prevents us from believing not only that millions of souls were created in the twinkling of an eye, but also that the world as it now is was likewise suddenly created, is that we happen to know quite definitely the history of the world a little way into the past, and that history affirms that the earth and all life on it is the product of slow evolutionary growth.
The evolution of the soul places the realm of religion on a scientific basis. Not only the origin of the soul but its development and its destiny at once appear in a new light. The mind is instinctively impressed with the dignity of the idea of the evolution of the soul, which, with its corollary, the immanence of God, makes the divinity of man a fact in nature.